TdF - 2012 - Sir Bradley Wiggins Traditional Cache
TdF - 2012 - Sir Bradley Wiggins
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The 2012 Tour de France was the 99th edition of the race. It started on 30 June in Liege, Belgium and ended on the Champs-Élysées in Paris on 22 July with an SA Geocacher (thewhitedoggang) in attendance.
Bradley Marc Wiggins, CBE (born 28 April 1980) is a British professional track and road racing cyclist, riding for the UCI ProTeam Team Sky. Wiggins began his career on the track, but has made the transition to road cycling, becoming one of the few cyclists to gain success in both forms of professional cycling.
He won the 2012 Tour de France, becoming the first British winner in its history.
He entered the 2012 Tour de France as one of the favourites for overall victory. Wiggins began the Tour with second place in the prologue, behind Cancellara but taking time from all of his general classification rivals, finally taking the yellow jersey by finishing third on the first mountain top finish on stage 7. In doing so, he became only the second British rider to have led all three Grand Tours .
Among his many accomplishments, Wiggins holds two unique achievements: he is the only cyclist to have won the Tour de France and an Olympic gold medal in the same year and the only person to have won a Grand Tour and a gold medal in Olympic track cycling.
Following his success in 2012, Wiggins was the subject of several honours and awards; the Vélo d'Or award for best rider of the year, the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award and awarded a knighthood as part of the 2013 New Year Honours.
The Tour de France
The Tour de France is a cycling stage race held since 1903 over a current period of three weeks, although it was not staged from 1914 to 1918 and from 1940 to 1946, because of the World Wars.
French cyclists have been the most successful in the event, having won 36 of the 98 tours, although their last champion was in 1985. They are followed by Belgian riders, who have won 18, including 7 consecutive titles from 1912 to 1922. Cyclists from Spain have won 13 events. Cyclists from The United States of America have won 10 events, all coming from LeMond and Armstrong.
In total, cyclists from 12 countries have won the Tour de France.
During the Tour's history, its organisers have launched a series of other jerseys. In 1933, the race's best climbers were rewarded with the King of the Mountains competition, but it was not until 1975 that the leading rider in the classification wore the distinctive polka dot jersey. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the race in 1953, the green jersey competition was started. It rewarded the consistent finishers in individual stages by awarding points depending on the place in the stage. In 1975, the Tour organisers launched an award for the leading young cyclist, awarding a white jersey to the leading cyclist under 26 years of age in the general classification.
The first Australian to win the Tour was Cadel Evans in 2011 after being runner-up in 2007 & 2008
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